We still have Tikal Stela 39 left to examine. Depending on the interpretation, it is either from 376 or 416. The stela is cut in half, and only the lower half surviving. Also the text at the back of the stela has only the ending left.
At the start of the remaining text there are the names of king Chak Tok Ich'aak (B1-B2) and Lady B'alam Way Yaxuun (B3-A4). In front of Lady B'alam's name there is a phrase indicating she is listed here as someone's mother, b'ahja huntan (A3).
The word order strongly implies, supported by visual inspection of what remains, that the partly eroded glyph at the very start of the surviving text at A1 is yune, meaning "child of father", written thus before the name of the father and right after the name of his son, the protagonist whose name and identity are lost. This likely is a standard parental statement (A1-A4) of an unknown person who was the son of king Chak Tok Ich'aak and his wife, Lady B'alam Way Yaxuun (yune Nahbnal K'inich Chak Tok Ich'aak Yax Ehb' Xook b'ahja huntan Ix B'alam Way Yaxuun).
Following the parental statement is a phrase related to Chak Tok Ich'aak's predecessor and likely father king Muwa'an Jol whose glyph appears at B5. Next to nothing is known about him, but according to what seems to be written here, years had gilded his era with special glory.
Glyphs B4-B5 read t’aab’iiy u ch’ahb’ y’ak’abil Muwa'an Jol or "he raised the creation and darkness of Muwa'an Jol". This peculiar Mayan term is best understood through its opposite: defeated people were said to be without creation and darkness. To be able to raise "creation and darkness" was thus a statement of success and victory. The person who raised the creation and darkness apparently was the unknown protagonist. The partly eroded glyph at A6 looks to complete how the raising exactly was achieved, quite probably reading [ye]te b'ak?, "with captives". The unknown protagonist apparently had waged war and returned with a healthy number of captives, thus restoring the victorious days of his grandfather. This is well in line with the stela's front picture showing the headless protagonist treading a tied captive at his feet.
Notable is how the same "with captives" appears to be in the Man of Tikal monument (F8) in a damaged sentence which has Lord of the Tree K'uk' Mo as its protagonist.
At B6-A7 the text states completion of a Katun ending that looks to be 8.19.0.0.0 but is often claimed to actually be a much earlier one 8.17.0.0.0. While the damaged glyph at A7 appears to fit the later Katun ending better, an earlier reading is not impossible. However, the text in general looks far too polished to be from 376. We can compare the high quality of glyphs to the clearly less impressive Tikal Stela 4 from 396. Furthermore, the phrase u-tzutzuw "he completed" at B6 never appears in any 4th century text, and even if we date the stela to 416, it would still be the first ever appearance of this grammatically advanced expression which became common soon thereafter. We tend to date the stela then to 416.
Now, if Chak Tok Ich'aak's son was indeed overseeing a Katun ending in Tikal 38 years after his father's death, the victorious headless figure in stela's front face, trumping a captive, would also be made in the son's image. The fact that Chak Tok Ich'aak's glyph is hanging from the stone blade of the portrayed character rather indicates his ancestry than identity, just like Spearthrower Owl's glyph appears in the ornament held by king Siyaj Ch'an K'awiil in a later Stela 31 reminding people of his powerful grandfather.
Identifying Chak Tok Ich'aak's glyph as an indicator of ancestry makes us suspect that similar two stelas from nearby towns also portray the same unknown Mayan royal. Uxbenka Stela 11, cut from the middle with only the lower part surviving, portrays a now headless man holding an ornament decorated by Chak Tok Ich'aak's glyph. Another Stela 1 from Uolantun has a frontal figure with Chak Tok Ich'aak's glyph hanging from his waist, the stone damaged so that the part portraying the individual's head is missing. The inscriptions in both stelas are badly eroded, but date 8.18.13.5.11 (August 17, 409) can still be read in the Uolantun stela, further giving credence to the later date of 416 for Stela 39.
Comparing these three stelas we see how they have all been deliberately destroyed so that the man displayed on the main surface has lost his head, becoming faceless and anonymous. Damage like this can easiest be explained so that it was meant to make the figure unrecognizable. In all three cases the portrait's direct identifiers must have been in its upper body, most probably in the headpiece as was the usual custom, for instance in Tikal Stelas 31 and 40. Out of respect, no damage was done to Chak Tok Ich'aak's glyph which remains fully intact in each stela, further emphasizing the conclusion that the portrayed person was not him, but related to him.
It seems then that, in and around 416, a descendant of Chak Tok Ich'aak had become a major figure in Tikal and its sphere of influence, possibly falling short of the title of king who according to later texts was Siyaj Chan K'awiil, but still powerful enough to take over royal duties. As such his role appears similar to that of Siyaj K'ak's in Tikal and Uaxlactun from around late 370s to 390s.
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